This is America: Foreign Students Look On as Host Gets Ticket in Olympic National Park

In a nice display of American government not-at-work this weekend, a Port Angeles woman hosting international students was given a $125 ticket after she pulled into an Olympic National Park parking lot to show the students Crescent Lake.

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According to the Peninsula Daily News, 6th grade teacher Kelly Sanders pulled off U.S. Highway 101 to pose a crew of six international students near the Storm King Ranger Station. While there, a park ranger pulled up and asked for ID.

She was issued a $125 tickets for “Violation of Closure (Government Shutdown)” as the students, “two Japanese students from Mutsu City and four Peninsula College students from Indonesia, Hong Kong and China, watched puzzled,” the Penninsula Daily News reports.

“I didn’t know how to explain it to them because I can’t really understand why all this happened myself,” Sanders told the PDN.

The newspaper does note that Sanders skirted a duct-taped sign reading: “Because of the federal government shutdown, this National Park Service facility is closed.”

“I just assumed that it meant the bathrooms were closed, not that I would be breaking the law,” Sanders said.